


Justicar Venge

by Mengde



Series: Sith Apprentice: Darth Venge [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, M/M, Polyamory, Sith Obi-Wan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-08 01:28:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7737928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mengde/pseuds/Mengde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months into the war against the Sith and their Separatist allies, Venge finds himself stranded alone on Dantooine with Captain Rex - a surprisingly tolerable situation, as it turns out.  Still, all good things must come to an end, and their burgeoning relationship might come to a violent one if the new Separatist threat is as dangerous as it seems...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Seventh Day

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Re-Entry Official Timeline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/913029) by [flamethrower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower). 



> Welcome to the next Venge story! As always, all credit for the original creation of Venge goes to flamethrower and her Re-Entry series.

“Sir.  It’s morning.”

Justicar Venge cracked one eye open to blearily regard Captain Rex.  “What have I told you?” he asked, stifling a yawn.  “No ‘sir.’  Not while we’re alone.”

“Bit of an arbitrary hill you’ve picked to die on, _sir._ ”  Rex grinned and thrust a steaming cup of caf in Venge’s face.  “We’ve been alone for going on seven days now and I’m nowhere near stopping.  Besides – you didn’t seem to mind last night.”

With a scowl, Venge sat up on the cot.  AT-TEs had living quarters, cramped though they were, for extended deployments.  He and Rex had been sharing this one for, as the man had said, about a week.

“I think it poor form to sass a superior officer before he’s had his caf,” Venge muttered, taking a sip with a grimace.  They had no cream or sweetener, so Rex doubled down and brewed it black as deep space.

“Strictly speaking, sir, it’s poor form to sleep with a subordinate.  It’s a gateway to an exploitative power dynamic.”

Venge glared at him.  “ _You_ seduced _me._ ”

“That’s neither here nor there, sir.  Regulations are quite clear.”  Rex’s grin didn’t falter.  “And to think you could’ve avoided this conversation if you’d just woken up and said, ‘Morning, Captain.  Thanks for the shag.’”

With a weary sigh, Venge got to his feet.  His prosthetic arm whirred as he pushed off the cot.  The limb was a gracefully curved, lustrous silver appendage made from a phrik alloy.  “Your point’s made, Rex,” he said.  He tapped the sharpened talons of his prosthetic fingers rhythmically against the mug of caf.  “Anything happen on your watch?”

“Dead as dead can be out there, sir.  No movement, EM radiation, anything.”

Venge nodded.  “Well, get some sleep.  I’ll go kill something edible and bring it back.  When you’ve had six hours we’ll continue scavenging for transmitter parts.”

“Sounds good, sir.”  Rex began stripping off his armor, a process with which Venge had become intimately familiar in the past week.  He got down to the black body glove beneath, his muscular frame quite appreciable through the thin material.  “Good luck out there, sir,” he said as he settled into the one intact cot.

“Pleasant dreams, Captain,” Venge replied.

If he were here with Padmé, he would have leaned down and kissed her before moving to the blessedly still-functioning ’fresher.  But this was Rex, and as much as Venge enjoyed kissing him, it didn’t feel right to do so here.  He was still trying to figure out what their dynamic was.

So he gave the other man’s shoulder a squeeze, and headed to the ’fresher.  Fifteen minutes later, moving quietly so as not to wake Rex, Venge let himself out of their crippled hulk of an AT-TE.

The sight that greeted him remained depressing and simultaneously awe-inspiring.  Hundreds of thousands of destroyed droids were spread out over a vast prairie, interspersed with the white-armored bodies of clones.  The grisly carpet stretched over the golden-brown ground for kilometers around.  Towering into the sky were the destroyed remains of AT-TEs, spider droids, gunships, and other weapons of war.

All this destruction wrought in a single instant, when an unknown capital ship had bombarded the battlefield with a massive ion beam.

Venge had felt the warning in the Force.  Only meters from Rex, he had Pulled the captain to him and created the sturdiest Force shield he could, channeling the lethal ionic discharge around them.  The Separatists had sacrificed close to a million droids just to wipe out a few thousand clones, but he couldn’t deny the efficacy of the trap.  They had the numbers for it.  In a war of attrition, the advantage was theirs.

And now he and Rex were stuck here on Dantooine, all technology capable of letting them call for help having been fried in some way or other.  They had been here a week with no sign of any reinforcements or working gear they could salvage.  It was a small miracle the AT-TE still had a working water-cycling system for the ’fresher and caf maker.

Venge ventured just far afield enough to spot one of the herds of herbivores that roamed the prairies here, eating the golden grasses.  They were big, dumb, hairy four-legged things, but they were also quite fast when they got it in their heads to run.

From half a kilometer away, Venge sprinted toward them, the Force letting him move faster than a speeder.  The grazers had just begun to flee in earnest when he caught up to one.

He drew the lightsaber he had fashioned after the Battle of Kamino.  The hilt was long, black, and elegant.  The emitter was made from phrik, opened up in a graceful curve, and sported recessed hollows for superior energy dissipation.  A long, sharp claw, also made from phrik, rose to one side of the emitter.

Venge thumbed the blade to life as he leapt on the beast, and a silver shaft of energy sprang from the hilt to sever the creature’s head.

He returned his saber to his belt, pulled a long knife out.  The past week had given him plenty of opportunities to dust off his carcass-dressing skills.  He quickly removed the skin, making a gruesome but effective carry bag from it.  Then he got to work on the muscle, piling choice cuts up.  He also extracted the liver.

Hauling twenty kilos of raw meat back to the AT-TE was hard work, but they had food for a few days again.  Rex had rigged up a conservator by sealing a cargo hold and then opening one of the coolant pipes running through the ceiling.  It was crude, but effective, and coolant fumes wouldn’t kill them unless they spent quite a while breathing them in.

The entire hunting process took a good three and a half hours, so Venge settled in to meditate until Rex was awake.  He could have gone out scavenging for transmitter parts, but he had always been just technical enough to build lightsabers and fix his ships.  Building a subspace transmitter from detritus was beyond him.  Better to conserve the energy.

He relaxed into the Force and reached out, questing for Padmé, but as usual he felt nothing.  A shroud hung over Dantooine.  Something had happened here a long time ago, something that had thrown the Force out of balance, tipping it to the Dark.  That was all well and good for him if he had to fight something, but peaceful techniques like long-range Force contact were nigh impossible to perform.

Time passed swiftly in the meditation trance.  He became aware of Rex’s surfacing consciousness what seemed like only minutes later.

“Afternoon, sir,” Rex said as he sat up on the cot.  “What’s the chow today?”

“Dantooine grazer steak,” Venge replied.  “With the option for liver instead.”

Rex grunted.  “Seventh day in a row.  I’m likely to file a formal complaint with Supply.”  He noisily popped his neck.  “Make mine medium rare, would you?”

“You could also learn how to cook.”

The blonde man grinned at him.  “I rather prefer to watch you do it, sir.  So blissfully _domestic._ ”

Venge made a vague gagging noise as he went to get the meat.

* * *

They sat atop the back of their AT-TE, under the blue sky, as Venge cooked their meal on a Force-heated sheet of armor plating.  Rex, back in armor but having doffed his helmet, surveyed both the horizon and the landscape with macrobinoculars.

“Still nothing other than animals,” he said.  “I wonder if the Order’s written us off.”

“Unlikely,” Venge replied, turning the steaks with the Force.  “Dantooine is in a strategic location; it’s the whole reason Thrawn dispatched the 212th and 501st here.  He wouldn’t just ‘write off’ the thousands of men on-planet.  Not his style.  I suspect they’re trying to get reinforcements here and failing.  Probably because of whatever that monster ship was that cooked us.”

“General Skywalker and Commander Cody won’t give up, certainly,” Rex agreed.  “Maybe, though –”

“Even through the planet’s Force shroud I would be able to tell if he died,” Venge reassured Rex.  “He’s alive, and if Anakin’s alive so is Cody.  We should focus on getting a transmitter running in order to receive a sitrep.”

“Fair.”  Rex hesitated a moment.  “Look, sir –”

“If this is headed in the direction I suspect,” Venge told him, “then we really must drop the ranks and ‘sirs.’”

Rex shrugged.  “I suppose.  All right, then.  _Venge._   Where is this going to go after we get off this rock?”

Venge shrugged, plating the steaks on what passed for their dishes – a pair of ration tins, carefully cleaned of their original contents.  He pulled his knife to slice his own meal.  “Speaking for myself, I’ve liked the past few nights.  I see no reason why we should stop once we return to the fight.”

The other man’s voice dipped into that low almost-growl that Venge so enjoyed.  “I’ve had fun too,” Rex agreed.  “I just – we were joking earlier, about regulations, but it _is_ rather irregular.  And might it affect your ability to command?”

“Strictly speaking, you’re in Anakin’s unit, not mine.  And if you hadn’t noticed, Rex, I am a walking irregularity.”  Venge chewed thoughtfully at his steak.  “If you want this to continue, it will.  That’s my position.  And let it be known that I want it to as well.”

“Good to know.”  Rex ate a bite of his own meal.  “What about the Ambassador?”

“Padmé and I are not monogamous,” Venge replied.  “We also certainly don’t have veto power or anything of that sort.  So, what about her?”

“Well –”  Rex visibly fumbled for the words he needed.  “What if she doesn’t like me?  I assume I’ll have a proper introduction at some point.”

That made Venge snort.  “Not like you?  Rex, you’re intelligent, loyal, surprisingly witty, and extremely dangerous.  She’s likely to regret not snatching you up for herself.”

Rex colored appreciatively, which Venge found adorable.  “Hadn’t considered that,” he murmured.  “Though I’m obliged to ask – _surprisingly_ witty?”

With an easy shrug, Venge replied, “You play the humorless captain very well.”

“It’s a gift.”  Rex looked down at his gauntleted hands.  “This is all new territory for me, s – Venge.  We’re taught about the basics – health, safety, ‘moving parts’ – but it’s not as though the Kaminoans included ‘relationship expectations’ in our flash-learning.”

“So you don’t know what to expect from this.”  Venge pursed his lips.  “Well, I’m new to relationships as well.  Padmé is the first lover I’ve had that I didn’t later kill for one reason or another.”

Rex laughed darkly.  “Bleak.”

“Being a Sith is like that.”  Almost unconsciously, Venge flexed the metal fingers of his right hand.  “So in my experience, a relationship involves some good sex, someone to listen to your complaints and troubles – and vice versa – and some new and interesting feelings.  Considering any one of us might be dead tomorrow, I can think of little beyond that for which a relationship has room at times like these.”

“There’s certainly been some good sex so far,” Rex said, scooting a couple inches closer.  “And some interesting feelings.”

“Agreed.”  Venge had another bite of steak, pretending to ignore the hand Rex had casually placed on the inside of his thigh.  “I pity anyone who sleeps on that cot after us, considering what we’ve gotten up to in it.  Of course, that assumes this thing is salvageable –”

He broke off his dissembling as Rex kissed him, darting his tongue into Venge’s mouth.  They sat there like that for a long minute, enjoying the kiss and the surrounding silence of the prairie.

“Are you wanting to head back inside?” Venge asked, pointedly looking at Rex’s hand.  It had drifted up his thigh during the kiss and now rested, fingers cupped possessively, just below Venge’s belt.

“After we eat,” Rex replied casually.  “I’m discovering that I enjoy being a tease, I think.”

“Then get your hand off my cock and eat your steak,” Venge said with a snort.  “You’re distracting.”

Rex looked like he was about to say something witty when a familiar sound fractured the silence.  It was a ship descending into the atmosphere.

Venge came to his feet, hand darting to his lightsaber, while Rex snatched up his macrobinoculars and began to scan the sky.  “What do you see?” Venge asked, trying to scan with the Force and detecting nothing.

“Nothing,” Rex growled.  “I’m not – wait.”  He went rigid, his entire body like a coiled spring.  “CIS dropship.  It looks like we’re about to have company, sir.”

They exchanged one, long look, then Rex grabbed his helmet and they slid down the sides of the AT-TE, bolting for the treeline of the forest two kilometers away.

* * *

Hiding, half-crippled, in the tail of a comet passing through the Dantooine system, the _Resolute_ was just close enough to the planet to let it spy.

Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker stood on the bridge, staring at the blue-and-gold planet.  He was trying to spot the massive warship that had dropped out of hyperspace, annihilated his ground forces, and proceeded to obliterate his entire battle group in a matter of minutes – all with a pair of absolutely enormous ion cannons.

“It looks like the tinnies have dispatched a lander to the site of the battle,” the sensor officer reported to him.

Anakin turned to gaze at Admiral Wullf Yularen.  “Looks like they’re finally making their move,” he said.

“Odd,” Yularen mused.  “They’ve been sitting in orbit blockading the planet for a week, and they only move now?  It must have something to do with the shuttle that arrived an hour ago.  One of the Sith?”

“I don’t sense any other Force users,” Anakin replied.  “Comms, have we got anything?”

The comm officer nodded.  “If by ‘anything,’ you mean ‘a mess of gibberish,’ sir.  There might be one clear word in there.”

Yularen snorted.  “One word is better than none, Lieutenant.  Let’s have it.”

There was a long moment as the officer made sure he was reading it correctly.

“‘Grievous.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Venge's new lightsaber is straight-up the Scorpion hilt from Ultrasabers. It is the most gorgeous lightsaber I have ever seen anywhere and I want one. The More You Know! Hope to see you all for the next chapter. :)


	2. Grievous

Sitting in his sealed meditation chamber aboard the _Invisible Hand,_ Dooku felt the mental summons from his Master suddenly take hold of him.  He waved the chamber open, emerging from its perfect darkness into the sumptuously appointed living quarters he maintained aboard ship.  From there he took a private turbolift to the observation deck, where his Master awaited.

The Muun was sitting with his back to the entrance, gazing out at the depths of hyperspace.  Dooku felt an instinctive shiver of fear as he gazed on that pale, spindly form.  Three months ago, Venge had played his final card, releasing all his blackmail files on Lord Plagueis while keeping Sidious’s identity secret.  It had been instantly clear that Sidious had made a deal with Venge, the Order, or both, particularly after Dooku’s contacts reported that any blackmail on the sole remaining Chancellor had been destroyed.

Since that dark day when the Muun had made his escape from Coruscant, he had resided here, directing the CIS in its way against the Jedi.  And while Dooku was nothing if not loyal, only an utter fool would not be frightened of what Plagueis was becoming.

“My Lord Plagueis,” Dooku said, stopping the requisite five steps from the other’s chair and bowing.  “You sent for me.”

The chill rattle of the Muun thoughtfully sucking air through his transpirator was very loud in the stillness of the observation deck.  “I did,” he confirmed, his basso voice echoing slightly.  “What news of Grievous?”

Consulting his commlink messages, Dooku replied, “He has made planetfall, my lord.”

“Very good.  We will see if he is worth the time and credits invested in his creation.”

Dooku chose his words carefully.  “You are sure that Venge survived the _Malevolence_ ’s ion bombardment?”

Plagueis gave a hollow laugh.  “Schmong’s technological terror is impressive, but you know Venge’s power.  It will take more than an orbital strike to put him down.”

Nodding, Dooku asked, “If I may, my lord – why allow San Hill to create this creature at all?  The Kaleesh was a useful tool, but –”

“I am curious to see if extensive cyborg enhancement can make for a viable Force-user killer,” Plagueis relied.  He still had not turned his chair or even glanced over his shoulder.  “With the clone army on their side and my former apprentice in control of the Republic, the Jedi must be whittled down through attrition.  The bio-chip should allow us temporary control of the clones for the execution of a single order, but we cannot count on a purge to be sustained, as we originally intended.  When we give that one order, the Jedi must be so weakened that their ranks are forever shattered by that betrayal.”

It made sense.  Dooku understood that the power of the Dark Side was at its strongest when concentrated in only a few individuals; they might be able to brainwash Jedi prisoners, but full corruption had to be used sparingly, and true apprentices needed to be rare.

“Do you think Grievous will succeed?” Dooku asked.

Now, at last, Plagueis slowly swiveled his chair around to look Dooku in the eye.  The Muun’s eyes were acid-yellow pools, the barest pinprick of a pupil visible.

“Do you?” Plagueis asked.

Dooku sank into the Force, sampling its currents.  “Difficult to say, my lord,” he replied.  “The Force is shrouded on Dantooine.  The destruction of the Jedi Enclave there, millennia ago though it was, lingers.”

The skin around Plagueis’s eyes wrinkled in a smile.  “Then there is no better battleground.  Denied foresight, Venge will have to fight solely in the present.  That levels the field.”

“So it is a true test,” Dooku said.  “I cannot tell who may triumph.”

His Master began to turn away again, back toward the stars.  “Indeed, Lord Tyranus,” he replied.  “You may leave now, and return to your meditations.  We will arrive at our destination in two hours.”

Dooku bowed deeply at the waist.  “Yes, my lord.”

He only had to try a little not to hurry as he left the observation deck.

* * *

Crouched in the upper branches of one of the spindly trees at the edge of the forest, Venge watched the droid lander set down in the high, golden grasses of the prairie.

“Anything interesting?” he hissed to Rex as the enemy craft began disgorging distant figures.

Rex examined the landing site through his macrobinoculars.  “B-1s.  Some of those new commando droids, they’re quite nasty.  And –”  He took a sharp breath.  “What the hell is _that?_ ”

“May I?” Venge asked.  He accepted the macrobinoculars as Rex handed them to him.

The last thing off the lander, Venge saw, was a tall, skeletal droid of an unfamiliar make.  It sported clawed arms and legs, a triangular torso, and a cranial unit that looked like a humanoid skull framed by a pair of flanged armor segments.

It also, bizarrely enough, wore a white cloak.

“I don’t like the look of that thing, sir,” Rex murmured.  “Some kind of special assassin droid, like the MagnaGuards we’re hearing about?”

“I don’t know,” Venge murmured back, watching the thing carefully.  It seemed to be scanning its immediate surroundings, head rotating slowly.  He increased his magnification –

And found himself staring into a pair of golden, bloodshot, _organic_ eyes that fixed themselves on his.

“Shit,” he said matter-of-factly.

They slid from their branches, dropping to the forest floor as the lead droid gestured the rest after them.  “That’s some excellent visual acuity the big one’s got,” Rex commented as they dashed deeper into the trees.  “Wonder what kind of sensor package it’s got installed.”

“Is there is a sensor package that uses organic eyes?” Venge asked.  “Because otherwise I’m willing to put money on that thing being a cyborg.”

“Didn’t realize the CIS had any to deploy,” Rex said.  He gestured at Venge’s silver arm.  “Then again, it’s not like we haven’t got our own cyborgs running around.”

“Having a mechanical limb is one thing.  Whatever’s out there is something else entirely.”  Venge used the Force to scan for the creature’s signature, but it was too distant or too swamped by Dantooine’s shroud for him to pick up.

“Fair.  I wonder what its capabilities are.”

“I’d rather not find out, at least not firsthand.”  Venge gestured toward an especially tall, thick-trunked tree in the near distance.  “Up we go, and then we keep it _quiet._   I want a closer look without fighting it, if possible.”

“Yes, sir!”  Rex increased his speed toward the tree and took a running leap at the lowest branch.  Venge gave him a Force boost before rocketing up himself.  They climbed to midway up the tree, then took up surveillance positions there, crouched and ready.

It took only a few minutes for their pursuit to catch up.  First came the commando droids, their blunt, humanoid heads rotating as they scanned the area.  The B-1s came trotting after them.

Then came the cyborg.

Its clawed feet gouged up the soil as it walked, hands apparently clasped behind its back beneath its cloak.  It stopped beneath their tree, its head bobbing.

With a sickening jolt, Venge realized it was _sniffing._

It sucked the air, drawing deep, regular breaths.  Venge could picture its sensor systems isolating the molecules drawn in by its hidden nostrils, analyzing them, sampling them for the barest traces of a clue.  He held his breath, feeling Rex do the same.

The cyborg kept walking.

Both men waited until it was ten meters off to breathe again, then waited some more to whisper.  “Looks like reinforced durasteel limbs,” Venge murmured.  “Independent rotation.  Nasty claws on the digits.”

“I couldn’t hear any servomotor activity,” Rex whispered back.  “It must not have been using even a tenth of its movement capacity.”

Venge nodded.  “Here’s the new plan.  I lower us down silently with the Force.  We sneak back to the droid lander.  There’ll be a guard there; we take them out as quickly as possible.  If the lander has life support, we take it.  If not, we use it to send a signal to the Order and get a sitrep.  Worst-case is that the lander doesn’t have life support or a hypercomm, in which case you take it and rely on your armor to keep you alive for the hour it’ll take to reach the nearest Jedi outpost.”  He held up a hand to silence Rex’s protest before the man could voice it.  “No argument.  Understood?”

Rex’s shoulders hunched in a sigh.  “Understood, sir.”

“Good.  Lowering you in three…”

Their path back to the lander was clear, and they got to within visual range without difficulty.  Venge continually Force scanned their surroundings for the cyborg, but detected nothing.

The lander was guarded by a score of B-1s and eight commando droids.  Venge and Rex kept low, cowering in the grasses of the prairie, until they were in range.

Venge leapt, silver blade hissing to life.  He crossed the twenty-meter gap to the enemy in an instant, landing heavily in front of a commando droid which he bisected with his downward motion.  The droids opened fire, a hail of blaster bolts closing from all directions, but Venge fell into Soresu to become a living bulwark.  His saber flashed in precise, quicksilver parries, deflecting bolt after bolt back into its shooter.

Between that and Rex’s twin pistols, they made a very clean, very fast sweep of the droids.

“Get in there and give me a report,” Venge said, holstering his lightsaber.  “I’ll keep an eye out for –”

He had a split second’s early warning from the Force, and it saved both their lives.  Acting on instinct, he Pushed Rex away even as he tucked into an evasive roll.  The cyborg landed with a tremendous crash on the spot where he had been standing.  Its clawed feet kicked up a huge cloud of dust and soil  Its metallic carapace gleamed silver in the Dantooine sun.

In its claws it gripped a pair of very familiar weapons.

Venge’s eyes widened as he recognized the stygium saber he had lost on Geonosis, as well as the Sith saber he’d left aboard the _Invisible Hand_ with his right arm.  The two blades ignited, blue and red humming with menace.

“GET ON THE LANDER!” Venge bellowed at Rex, reigniting his own weapon.  “TAKE OFF!”

Rex came to his feet, leveling his pistols at the cyborg.  “But –”

“THAT IS AN ORDER, CAPTAIN!” Venge cut him off.  “GO!  NOW!”

And the cyborg sprang at him.

Venge met its charge, blocking its first five blows before spinning away to recover distance.  It was unbelievably fast, faster than Dooku.  Stronger, too, Venge thought as he caught another strike and felt the force of it hammer into him.

But the creature had only just begun its assault.  It brought up a clawed foot to try to gash open Venge’s abdomen.  When he twisted away from that, it rotated its left hand into an angle perpendicular to its forearm and began to spin it so rapidly that the saber in its grip formed a lethal blue-white circle in the air.  It slashed at him with that, spinning its torso three hundred and sixty degrees like a demented, murderous top.

Venge gave ground, letting the cyborg push him back away from the lander.  There was no way he was going to try to stop the literal lightsaber buzzsaw cutting at his face and chest; there was so much sheer centripetal force behind it that he would be lucky to only lose his lightsaber.  All Rex needed was a minute.  Once the lander was away, Venge could retreat and play hide-and-seek with the cyborg until reinforcements arrived.

His opponent stopped its crazy spin and returned to hammering at him with both blades, trying to kill him with his own weapons.  Venge tapped the Force as deeply as he could, calling on it to strengthen his defense, to give speed to his movements.  He had to last.

The lander’s repulsorlifts hummed.  The boxy craft began to lift off the ground.  At the sound of it the cyborg whirled its torso around to look at the ship, while its arms continued their attempt to skewer Venge on his own blades.  Desperate to keep it distracted, Venge switched to Makashi, going from impervious defense to furious offense in the blink of an eye.  The cyborg had to turn its upper body back to face him in order to hold back his sudden flurry.

Then, just as he felt the tempo begin to shift in his favor, Venge’s opponent changed tactics.  It leapt back, landing on a single leg, the other slashing at Venge with durasteel claws as he tried to close the distance between them and keep the pressure on.  He was abruptly fighting against three weapons rather than two.

The lander leapt fully into the air.  Venge glanced up at it, relief surging through him, and in his split second of distraction the cyborg struck.

It crossed its blades on either side of Venge’s, locking his and keeping him from being able to bring it around to defend against the foot angling for his chest.  The claws ripped into his left shoulder, shredding flesh and muscle before deflecting off his breastbone.  Venge staggered, using the motion to wrench his lightsaber free, and warded off two more lethal strikes from his foe’s weapons.  Before he could completely correct his stance, the cyborg dropped its right saber, planting that hand against the ground in what might have been the prelude to a somersault.

However, rather than a somersault, it launched another attack.  Faster than even Venge could react to, the foot which had been slashing at him scooped the discarded saber up with its unbelievably flexible claws.  It brought the weapon up in a hammer blow which sent Venge’s lightsaber flying from his hands.

The other foot, which had still been planted on the ground, leapt from the soil into a snaking thrust at Venge’s face.  Curved metal talons the size of his hands seized his skull.  Then the world was spinning, he was moving helplessly through the air –

His head smashed against the ground.  Blackness swallowed everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So after three days with no internet I'm back! (Everything is fine now.)
> 
> I'm going on record right now and telling you that my Grievous is *entirely* based on his original animated appearance in Star Wars: Clone Wars, in which he is a terrifying murder machine rather than a stupid dramabot. If you've never seen it, I recommend it! The whole thing is only about two hours.
> 
> This is his original introduction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIj7gIDFDe4
> 
> See you next time!


	3. Silence and Shadows

“Sir!” the sensor officer barked.  “The lander has bypassed the enemy hangar bay!  It is driving for deep space!”

Anakin snapped his head around to look at Yularen.  “Do we have any way to signal our position to them without giving it away to the enemy cruiser?”

The Admiral shook his head in reply.  “The comet would interfere with any signal weak enough for the cruiser to miss.  We could try a direct laser transmission, but it’s unlikely the lander would have a signal port.  Could you…” He made a vague gesture.

“Venge isn’t aboard,” Anakin told him grimly.  “It’s a clone, probably Rex.  Telepathy won’t work with a non-sensitive at this distance.”

The enemy cruiser was now coming to life, turbolaser batteries spitting scarlet bolts after the lander.  The massive starboard ion dish was also beginning to glow menacingly, gathering power for its awesome ionic shockwave.

A sudden and violent certainty took hold of Anakin, the Force telling him _go now or all is lost._

He bolted from the bridge, getting into the turbolift and slamming the button for the hangar bay before Yularen could so much as yelp.  The intercom buzzed to life, the Admiral’s voice filling the turbolift.  “General Skywalker?”

“I need to get out there,” he snapped.  “Everything depends on it.  I’m going to take my Aethersprite out along the edge of the comet tail and position the lander between myself and the cruiser for my approach.”

There was a moment of hesitation.  “That might disguise your sensor echo,” Yularen agreed, “but how are you going to effect a personnel transfer between the ships?”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something!” Anakin lied.  The turbolift opened onto the hangar, and he sprinted for his fighter.

Artoo-Detoo was waiting for him next to his Aethersprite.  The little astromech hooted a greeting, then twittered an inquiry.

“No time to talk, Artoo,” Anakin said, leaping into the cockpit and hauling the droid up with the Force so he could settle it into its socket.  “Bring all systems online, emergency start.  Can’t bother with preflight.”

He slammed the repulsorlifts and drives to full, ignoring Artoo’s scream of protest, then sent the Aethersprite slewing through the magcon field separating the hangar from the vacuum of space.  Reaching out with the Force, he guided his fighter on instinct through the dust and ice of the comet’s tail, emerging into clear space on a vector which put the lander between himself and the Separatist cruiser.

The pilot of the lander was doing a rather amateurish job jinking and juking the ungainly craft to avoid turbolaser blasts, but the huge ship’s weaponry wasn’t designed to precisely target such relatively small enemies.  Anakin matched his maneuvers, masterfully keeping himself inside the lander’s sensor shadow.  He eyed the energy readings from the cruiser.  Its ion weapon should be charged in less than thirty seconds –

Apparently the commander didn’t think he needed a full-charge blast to take out a single ship.  A huge, rippling ring of crackling ionic energy leapt from the cruiser’s starboard emitter, closing inexorably on the lander, growing larger as it tore through space.

Artoo squawked at him in alarm.  “Hold on!” Anakin barked, kicking in his boosters.  An idea had begun to form in his mind, half-baked and truly terrible but just maybe workable.

As they closed in on the lander, Anakin hit his retro thrusters, braking the Aethersprite hard.  He also kicked into a sharp rotation, bringing its underside around to face the flat front prow of the other craft.

And he landed on it.

The magnetic couplings on the Aethersprite’s landing gear stuck it fast to the lander, joining the two ships with a jolt.  Anakin took a series of short, fast breaths, emptied his lungs, and popped his canopy.

All the air rushed out around him with an explosive hiss; then silence descended, absolute.  The cold of space tore at him, the horrible feeling of vacuum gripping his body.  He sheathed himself in the energies of the Force to ward off the cold and to try to prevent ebullism.

Ninety seconds was the rule of thumb for surviving vacuum exposure.  Jedi could manage multiple minutes, even hours if they first went into a Force hibernation trance.  But that was all rather moot, given that he had maybe forty seconds before the ion blast hit him and fried his nervous system.

Anakin floated free of his cockpit, pulling himself along the Aethersprite’s hull to just over the lander’s prow.  Calling on the Force to guide his hand, he drew his lightsaber and thumbed it to life.  It was odd, seeing the emerald blade appear without its customary snap-hiss, but he didn’t let the strangeness distract him.  It had been about fifteen seconds, the normal limit of useful consciousness for humans in a vacuum, and white spots were beginning to dance in front of his eyes.  The total lack of pressure was accelerating his hypoxia, and the Force could only compensate so much.

He shoved his lightsaber straight into the prow of the lander.  With a mighty effort, he sliced a circle large enough for a man to crawl through, then popped the metal free with the Force.  Luck was on his side; the lander had no life support and was unpressurized, so there was no potentially dangerous burst of released gases from the opening.

Looking up through the hole was Captain Rex.

His shock resounded through the Force at the sight of Anakin floating there, but he didn’t stop to stare or wonder what was going on.  Moving quickly and purposefully, he leapt to the hole and let Anakin pull him through.

Ten seconds later, Anakin was on the verge of passing out, only the Force keeping him conscious.  But they were back in the cockpit, the canopy was sealing, Artoo was initiating emergency repressurization.  With every ounce of willpower he possessed, Anakin forced his stiff, already-bruising hands to grip the yoke.  He lifted them off the lander, swung the Aethersprite around, and hit the drive.

Rex was saying something, but Anakin couldn’t hear it.  He was aware of rushing air and the drumming of his heart, but he suspected his eardrums had been damaged by the rapid pressure changes.

It didn’t matter.  The ionic shockwave was about to hit, but he needed to stay on course until he could loop around back behind the comet to avoid the enemy cruiser’s sensors.  He pushed the Aethersprite as hard as he could, desperate to stay ahead of the roiling ring of energy but unwilling to merely veer out of its way and risk detection.  Anakin sank deep into the Force, letting it guide his actions as he maximized engine output, changed core intermix ratios for faster power cycling, brushed away macroparticles that might slow them even a hundredth of a percent –

_Now._

He spun the ship into a hard loop, diving just below the edge of the ionic shockwave and leveling out with the tail of the distant comet squarely between him and the cruiser.  Relief flooded him.  He’d done it.

Then, finally, he passed out.

* * *

The next thing Anakin was aware of was lying flat on his back in a bio bed, something uncomfortable inserted into each of his ears.  He was wearing nothing but a medical smock.  A Two-Onebee med droid stood over him, along with Rex and Yularen.

“He is awake,” the droid pronounced in its sonorous voice.  “I can permit two minutes’ conversation, and then we must begin bacta immersion.”

Anakin groaned.  “Ugh.  Not bacta.  Anything but.”  He was surprised how weak his voice was, how difficult the words were to form.

“You need it, sir,” Rex said, leaning over him.  “I owe you one, and I’m grateful, but that ridiculous stunt you pulled blew out your eardrums and severely damaged your lungs.  You’ve also got internal hemorrhaging from microcrystal ice formation in your blood, and generalized decompression sickness.  It’s a wonder you avoided any ebullism.”

“Great,” Anakin wheezed.  “Do you have intel?  On Venge?”

Rex nodded grimly.

“He’s in deep shit, sir.”

* * *

Venge woke slowly, and painfully.

As he opened his eyes, he saw that twilight had fallen.  His head felt ready to split, and his left shoulder –

He frowned, looking at it.  The wounds the cyborg had inflicted had been sutured with medical-grade biothread.  The lacerations were already healing.

Also, he was still alive.  That, too, was unexpected.

He became aware of heat radiating from an unknown source near his feet.  He sat up, bringing a carefully constructed campfire into view.

Seated opposite him, on the other side of the flames, was the cyborg.

Venge scrambled back a meter, hand automatically groping for his lightsaber.  He was quite surprised when his fumbling fingers actually closed around the elegant weapon on his belt.  His mind quickly eliminated every possibility but one: the cyborg had stitched him up and returned his weapon to him.

It sat there, shoulders hunched beneath its white cloak, golden eyes gazing at him.  It made no move toward him.

“Why?” Venge asked.

“Because,” a mechanical, male voice replied, “I was disappointed.”

Venge bristled. “I apologize for not living up to your lofty expectations,” he said sardonically.  “I’m afraid you hardly caught me at my best.”

The cyborg, which Venge guessed would identify as male, snorted contemptuously.  “Clearly,” he said.

A moment of tense silence passed.

“Who are you?” Venge asked.

The golden eyes flashed.  “Grievous.”

That was somewhat familiar.  “The Kaleesh general?” Venge asked.  “I thought you were fighting the Huk.”

Grievous made a rattling growl somewhere in what passed for his throat.  “I was executing various missions for the CIS, in exchange for medical supplies and military support against the Huk invaders of my world.  There was an accident with my shuttle.  My body was heavily damaged.”

“You realize,” Venge said, “that it was more than likely not an accident.”

The Kaleesh sighed.  “I might have thought it was, but for the revelations in your blackmail files on Darth Plagueis.  They contained schematics used in the construction of my new body, which Plagueis told me he had designed specifically for me, _after_ my ‘accident.’”

Venge hissed.  “So you know you’re being used.  Why are you still fighting for them?”

Gesturing at him, Grievous replied, “For the chance to face you.”

“You had it.  You won.”

The only hint of an expression in that silver face was the Kaleesh’s eyes, and they didn’t even twitch.  “I did not want to.”

Now Venge held up a hand.  “Perhaps you’d better start from the beginning.  I’m quite confused.”

Grievous took a deep breath, the sound like bellows inflating.  “When I discovered the treachery of the CIS, I knew my life as it had been was over.  I loathe the Jedi for their arrogant refusal to aid my people against the Huk, and would kill them all, given the opportunity.  They are unworthy foes, and to fall to one would be almost as disgraceful as ending my own life.

“But you are not a Jedi, and not a Sith.  You aid the Jedi because they are the enemy of your enemy.  I judged you a worthy foe, and hoped to meet my death by your hand.”

Venge felt his jaw drop slightly.  “You want to die?”

“I am already dead, Justicar.  I am a déaþscúa, a ‘dead-thing-which-kills,’ in Basic.  I cannot and will not stop, nor give quarter, until I finally meet the death that will kill me.”

“So you want me to kill you when you’re earnestly fighting, holding nothing back,” Venge said.  “I can’t just cut your head off.”

The golden eyes narrowed.  “No, you cannot.  I have already compromised the situation enough by sparing you after our first encounter.”

Venge blew out a sigh.  “I’m afraid I can’t promise you anything.  I wasn’t holding back earlier.  You’re very skilled and well-designed.”

Grievous blinked slowly.  “You were not holding back, but at the same time you were not bringing your true strength.  I have fought Count Dooku for my training, Justicar, and have beheld the power of the Dark Side you are said to wield.  I have heard tell of your battle with him on Geonosis, where you stood against him for longer than I ever have.  I can thus tell you with certainty that if you had fought him with the strength you showed yesterday, you would have died.”

Venge growled.  “You’re saying what, that I’ve weakened?”

“The man who fought on Geonosis was stronger than the man who fought here.  It is a fact.”  Grievous leveled a silvery talon at him.  “I give you until dawn to determine what has changed, and to correct it.  Then we will fight again, and I will not hesitate to kill you if you prove not to be the bearer of my death.”

He stood and moved off into the darkness, leaving Venge alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, ordinarily I'm very serious about keeping people in line with their canon characterization where it makes sense, and keeping them recognizable as themselves even if they'd be changed by alternate-universe events (like Venge). But then it came time to write Grievous.
> 
> Grievous is just a bad character. He's one-dimensional, irritating... there's a reason this fandom calls him Dramabot. So I threw up my hands, said "fuck it," and decided to take one of my favorite tropes, the death-seeking warrior, and revamp him entirely. There is zero in-universe reason for him to be so different from canon, but I just hate his canon character and wanted to do the original, badass Jedi murderer from Clone Wars justice. I hope you all are enjoying it. :)
> 
> On an unrelated note, I learned *so much* about the dangerous effects of vacuum exposure writing this chapter.


	4. Plans and Alliances

Rex watched, relieved, as the Two-Onebee had Anakin lifted from the bacta tank.  Six hours’ total immersion appeared to have done wonders for the General; his color was back, the mottled bruising from subdermal hemorrhaging had faded.  As the personnel crane lowered his dripping form to stand atop a bacta recapture grate in the deck, he looked at Rex with bright, aware eyes.

“What’s the ship’s status?” he asked as soon as the rebreather mask came off.

Unfazed by the question, Rex tapped his left vambrace to bring up a comm channel to the bridge.  “Admiral Yularen, sir, the General is up and about again.  He’s asking for the ship’s status.”

“Acknowledged,” Yularen replied briskly.  “Wait one.”  There was a pause, roughly the length of time Rex expected it to take for the Admiral to consult the appropriate bridge monitor.  “Sublight drives and hyperdrive are back to full.  Weapons still offline.  Shields are patchy at best.  Sensors at peak efficiency.”

“Good,” Anakin said, his eyes flashing.  “Admiral, signal a general evacuation.”

Rex started at the order; Yularen’s gasp was also audible through the comm.  “General?” Yularen asked.  “Repeat, please?”

“You heard me.  Sound a general evacuation.  I need this ship empty.”

“For what?” Yularen demanded.  Rex, having not been given permission to speak freely, stayed silent, but internally he seconded the Admiral’s question.

Anakin must have sensed that, because he grinned at Rex as he began to pull on his clothes.

“I have a plan.”

* * *

Venge sat in meditation.

His head still hurt, but he fed on the pain, drawing strength and clarity from it.  He was certainly concussed, but he’d dealt with worse injuries in the field and survived.

Not that his situation had ever been this grim, even with the injuries.

Frowning, he banished the thought.  The last thing he needed was doubt.  He had already decided that Grievous had been trying to get under his skin with his intimations that he’d weakened.  What he needed to do now was gather his strength and power to prepare for the morning.

“You know he could have killed you.  There’s no reason for him to feel he needs to play psychological warfare.”

Venge opened his eyes.

Seated on the other side of the fire was a clean-shaven, brown-haired young man, dressed in black.  His eyes burned bright gold and he wore twin black-handled lightsabers on his hips.

“You’re not real,” Venge said.  “I’m concussed.”

Darth Venge shrugged.  “Perhaps.  Perhaps instead I’m a manifestation of the Dark Side.  Does it matter, so long as what I tell you is useful?”

Venge shook his head.  “We’re not doing this.  You’re a figment of my swollen brain.”

The other made an equivocating gesture.  “Fine.  Insist on that all you like.  Now sit there and listen, because I have something important to say.”

Closing his eyes, Venge vowed to ignore the phantasm.

“You used to be stronger than this,” Darth Venge began, his tone didactic.  “What changed?  It’s not that you got older.  It’s not that you got soft.”  There was a pregnant pause.  “It’s Padmé.”

Anger jolted through him.  Abandoning his decision to ignore the phantasm until it went away, he opened his eyes so he could glare at it.  “Padmé isn’t responsible for this.”

“Ah, so you admit there’s something to be responsible for,” Darth Venge laughed.  “And yes, she is.  Time was, you would happily slit a man’s throat and use the resulting spray of blood to leave a threatening message on his employer’s wall if the ends demanded it.  But being with her has you concerned about your means.  ‘If I do this, she’ll think less of me.  If I do that, she’ll know how terrible I am.’”  He spat.  “You used to be ruthless and uncompromising.  Now you worry about the lives of subordinates and the approval of an idealist.”

Venge kept glaring.  “Times change.”

“A weak excuse.  Everything you do, there’s another step added to your thinking.  ‘What would Padmé think?’”  He sneered.  “Pathetic.”

“If I lose her –” Venge started.

“Then what?  You’ll be nothing?  No, you’ll be free!  The Dark Side promises freedom, that’s the whole reason you left the Sith!”

Venge shook his head.  “I left because I thought I could be the kind of being a person like her would want.”

Darth Venge made a disgusted noise.  “Well, you’ve been there, tried that, and it’s made you weak!  Take her out of the equation.  Stop worrying about her approval.  It’ll do you a world of good.”

Venge grimaced.  “I can’t.  I need her.”

“Oh yes, you need her validation.  You need her to say you’re doing a good job.  WAKE UP!  You’re not doing one any longer, and she’s partially to blame!”

Coming to his feet, Venge began to pace away from the fire.  “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.”

“Yes, by all means run away,” Darth Venge mocked.  “Just like you did with Dooku.  Tell me – not that I don’t know the answer, but I want to hear you say it.  Tell me, have you told Padmé about your nightmares?”

Venge stopped walking.  “Go away.”

“‘Go away?’  I’m not some irritating stranger you can tell to piss off.  I’m you.  You’re not getting out of this conversation that easily.  Have you told her?”

With a growl, Venge spun, Sith lightning flaring from the fingers of his remaining flesh-and-blood hand.  Darth Venge slapped the bolts away with a contemptuous backhanded motion; they arced into a dead spider droid and touched off a secondary explosion.

“Have you told her?” he asked.

Venge lowered his hand.  Sighed.  “No.”

“You dream at least once a week about losing your arm to Dooku’s spell, and you don’t think to mention it to the woman you need so badly?”

Hating himself, Venge replied, “She’ll think I’m weak.”

“Bantha shit,” Darth Venge snapped.  “She would understand.  You don’t want to tell her because it would inevitably lead to you admitting something you’d rather not acknowledge: that you’re afraid.”

“Shut up.”

“You ran so abruptly into indisputable evidence of your own mortality that it changed you.  You’ve lost fights before, gotten scars, been hurt – remember how much Sidious hurt you? – but nothing like this.”  He gestured at the gleaming silver prosthesis.  “Never this.”

Slowly, Venge sank back down into a sitting position.

“You’re right,” he said.

Darth Venge didn’t gloat or even smile.  “Of course I am.”

“I don’t know how to fix this,” Venge said.  “Jedi healers are also qualified psych-therapists, but I don’t have it in me to go to one.”

“The Jedi aren’t going to talk you into being fearless again,” the other sniffed.  “Even if you weren’t prideful.  No, you need a different solution.”  His eyes glittered.  “I can help you.”

“How?”

“I can supplement you.  Take the fear and the doubt away.  Take the ‘what would Padmé think’ away.  Put you into a place of power, of decisiveness.  All I need is a trigger.”

Venge stared at him.  “You’re not a figment of my imagination.”

“No.”  Darth Venge shook his head.  “I’m not.”

“What are you?”

“Think of me as a manifestation of everything you’ve put aside to be this person that Padmé wants.  Alone, I have no power.  But together, you and I have more power than you ever could wield on your own.”

Putting his head in his hands, Venge said, “I can’t do this.  I’ve made strides, I’ve come so far for her.  I can’t erase all the progress I’ve made in exchange for power.”

“It doesn’t have to be permanent,” Darth Venge told him.  “There are already two sides to you – to us.  Keep being the person Padmé wants.  Keep being just Venge.  But when it’s necessary, when you desperately need the power – bring me out.  Call on my strength.

“Become Justicar Venge.”

Venge frowned.  “But I am –”

“No, you’re Venge, and Justicar is your title.  Your appellation.  But by doing this, you could _become_ Justicar Venge.  The embodiment of righteous vengeance.  No fear, no pain, no hesitation.”  Darth Venge smiled cruelly.  “And you would destroy Dooku, when you met him again.”

He looked down at the silver thing hanging from his shoulder where his arm had once been.

“All right,” Venge said.  “Terms.  I, Venge, remain in control at all times.  However much sentience or agency you have, you’re not exercising it.  You’re here to help me, not the other way around.  We only become Justicar Venge when I decide to, not when you think it might be a good idea.  And when I don’t call you, you’re gone.  I don’t see you, I don’t hear you, and you certainly don’t see or hear or feel whatever it is I’m doing.”

Darth Venge nodded.  “That sounds fair.”

“Good.”  Venge stood, extending his flesh-and-blood hand toward the other.  Darth Venge stood as well, reaching out to clasp Venge’s hand –

* * *

Venge opened his eyes.

He was still seated in a meditative pose in front of the fire.  The fire had shrunk considerably, and Dantooine’s primary was beginning to lighten the sky.

For a moment he wondered if any of that had really happened, but then he noticed the blasted hulk of the spider droid, flames still guttering quietly where his Sith lightning had struck it.

_Justicar Venge._

He stood, laying a hand on his lightsaber.  Grievous would be here soon.

He was not going to lose a second time.


	5. Dawn, and Dusk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone who commented on the previous chapter, please accept my apologies! I like to respond to all my readers' comments, but to be frank this past week has been very busy and I've had very little time for *anything.* I will try to Do Better with this one though. :D

Dawn.

He heard the cries of avians, departing their nests to seek prey.  The light of the primary vaporized the dew clinging to the golden grasses, turning it to mist which rose slowly and omnipresently from the ground.  A light breeze stirred the leaves of the trees around him.

It was a good day to die.

Grievous opened his eyes to find that he would not need to return to the battlefield where he had left Venge.  The man had come to him, seeking him out in the clearing where he had taken his rest.

He rose to his feet, servos whirring almost inaudibly with the motion.  There was something different this morning.  Something in Venge’s stance, the gleam of his golden eyes, the set of his jaw.  He wore his dark hood up, covering much of his face in shadow.

Sniffing the air, Grievous saw-felt the answer as his onboard systems completed their analysis of the atmosphere and flashed him their results.  Venge was giving off none of the human chemical markers of fear.  He had done something in the night, arrived at some kind of peace.

“Are you ready to fight?” Grievous asked him, drawing his sabers and bringing forth the blades.

Venge said nothing.  He merely widened his stance a bit, extended his prosthetic arm, and crooked a finger.

Grievous sprang at him, lightsabers buzzing down in a double overhand cut which would split Venge in three –

He stared, shocked.  Venge had taken a single step to the left, letting Grievous’s right-hand saber slam against the ground.  He had caught the other in his prosthetic hand.

Grievous belatedly realized the limb must be made of phrik.  Before he could bring his other lightsaber up to slash into Venge’s unprotected side, the man’s flesh-and-blood hand darted out to touch Grievous’s chestplate.  A storm of violet lightning pounded against his body, sending him flying ten meters to slam into a tree hard enough that the trunk all but exploded.

He was on his feet again in an instant, his machine body unaffected by the more deleterious effects the lightning would have had on an organic target.  Still, he was shaken.  Venge’s speed had increased drastically since yesterday’s encounter.  If he still had blood, Grievous thought, it would be quickening at the sight of this new Venge.  He might well die today.

It would be a death worthy of remembrance.

Venge had resumed his ready stance: feet spread, turned side-on to Grievous, prosthetic arm extended in invitation.  His left arm was held casually behind his back, bent at the elbow.  It was a declaration, Grievous thought, of total confidence.

He would test it now.

Rather than lunging in again, Grievous snapped both his sabers into buzzsaw position, then began a steady advance on Venge.  As he drew within striking distance, Venge began to take careful steps to maintain their zones, his left arm still behind his back, his right ready before him.

Grievous spun his torso into frenzied motion, attacking with fast, lethal rushes to Venge’s face and torso.  His foe’s response was a masterful demonstration of focus and form – he parried each blow of the spinning sabers with carefully angled deflections of his phrik hand, letting the lightsabers skate off its knife edge rather than trying to absorb their monstrous centripetal power with a hard block.  Every one of Grievous’s strokes fell centimeters shy of their mark as Venge angled them off-course, never once misstepping or miscalculating the positioning of his hand.

Changing tactics, Grievous stopped the spin of his weapons so he could thrust them both at Venge’s chest.  Venge slapped the left blade aside into the right, while simultaneously taking a fast series of spinning steps to Grievous’s side.  He took advantage of the opening to ram the taloned fingers of his prosthetic into one of the seams in Grievous’s chest armor, ripping away the plating to expose the biological components beneath.  He leapt away from the swiping kick Grievous threw at his gut.

Facing the very real possibility that he was going to be taken apart piece by piece, Grievous growled in frustration.  He had his pride, even at the end of his life.  He would make Venge draw his lightsaber.

He struck again, leaping into a whirling series of deadly acrobatic springs and jumps.  He alternated between lightsaber cuts, kicks, more lightsaber attacks with his feet, slashing claws…  His frenzy stripped the ground clean of grass and leaves, nothing remaining but torn soil as his movements shredded everything around him.

And still Venge kept up with it, dodging and deflecting and remaining unharried, a single point of calm in the storm.  Grievous redoubled his efforts, severing tree trunks and hurling them at Venge, launching kicks and saber swings so powerful they sent dirt flying for dozens of meters when they met the ground.  His systems were running beyond capacity, at levels of activity they were never meant to sustain.

But still he could not touch Venge.

In desperation, he kicked off into a spinning leap which carried him away from Venge, landing his feet vertically against a thick-trunked tree.  He overloaded his leg servos, propelling him like a torpedo straight at his adversary.  In the same instant he snapped his hands back into buzzsaw position, the blue and red beams carving the air before him as he flew.

Venge angled his extended phrik hand down, then twitched its fingers to his left.  Grievous felt an invisible force slap him across his side, pushing him slightly off-course, but there was no way to correct himself in midair.

Then Venge’s other hand emerged from behind his back.  In it, held in a peculiar reverse grip, was his lightsaber.

Time seemed to stand still.  Grievous recognized the moment of battle-clarity with a combination of incredulity and relief: he was about to die.

The reason for Venge’s reverse grip became apparent a moment later.  He swung his arm out, holding the weapon’s hilt perpendicular to Grievous’s path.  His thumb twitched.  As Grievous flew bare millimeters past him, the silver blade blazed to life, extending straight into the gap Venge had torn in his chest armor.

Everything was pain, then.  His chest felt as though it had exploded.  His systems wailed at him; his momentum had carried him forward, _through_ the lightsaber blade, which had destroyed his spine and pelvic actuators.  His vision failed him.

There was a distant sensation of terrible heat, but it alone was not enough to drag him back to full consciousness.  What brought him back to himself, blinking, was something he hadn’t felt in what seemed a lifetime: cool air, a breeze, on his face.

Grievous tried to focus his eyes, which the pain made difficult.  He was lying on his back, limbs splayed uselessly.

Standing over him was Venge.

The man’s attention was not on Grievous, though.  He was looking down at something in his phrik hand, something Grievous was straining to identify.

“Finish it,” Grievous rasped.  “Let me meet my death at last.”

Venge raised his hand, pressing Grievous’s silver mask, the mask he had carved free with his lightsaber, to his own face.  He let his hand drop away and Grievous found himself staring at golden eyes, stained with – not hatred, not anger, but a sense of terrible _inevitability_ – which burned out of the holes in the silver skull that was the rest of his face.  Venge had left the flanges attached to Grievous’s head, but otherwise preserved everything else: the vertical slashes leading down to the eyes, the grilled fangs at the chin.

 **“Prepare yourself,”** he said, and the voice that issued from beneath the mask echoed unnaturally through the clearing.

“Who are you?” Grievous felt compelled to ask.  “Are you truly the same man I fought yesterday?”

 **“No.”** He raised his weapon.  **“I am Justicar Venge.”**

His blade struck home, and Grievous felt no more.


	6. Planetfall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for going silent for a while there! I had a project that was eating all my writing time. But now We're Back.

“I’d like to say for the record,” Rex said to Anakin, “that I really hate it when you don’t tell me your plan, sir.”

At the helm of the _Resolute,_ Anakin turned around to grin at Rex.  “It’s more dramatic this way.  Plus, if anything goes wrong, I can say it’s just part of the plan.  Good for morale.”

Rex rolled his eyes.  “Of course, now that you’ve _told_ me that –”

“Evacuation status?”

With a sigh, Rex checked his instruments.  He was technically at the sensor station, but Anakin had patched half the ship’s functions into it.  It was, in short, a janky mess.  Flipping through screen after screen, Rex finally found the one he needed.  “Complete in two minutes,” he said.  “I’m assuming you’ll tell them where they’re going, sir?”

“Of course.  Just not yet.  Can’t take the risk of a communications intercept.”

Rex nodded slowly.  “Makes sense.  Element of surprise is going to be important no matter what the crazy plan.”

“Hey!  How do you know my plan is crazy?” Anakin protested.

Wordlessly, Rex turned to give him a flat, pointed stare.

Anakin screwed up his face under Rex’s withering scrutiny.  “Okay, fine.  So it’s a little crazy.”  The stare continued.  “Okay, a lot crazy.  Are you happy?”

“I’m never happy when there’s work to be done,” Rex replied.  “Happiness lowers tension and blunts your edge.  I can’t afford it.”

“Fair.  Will you be happy once my plan’s worked, then?”

Rex tilted his head.  “I think you’ll find that the question should have been an ‘if’ rather than ‘when,’ sir.”

“I said ‘once.’”

“My point remains, sir.”

Anakin blew an irreverent raspberry as he turned back to his console.  “Venge must have just _loved_ the last week alone with you.”

The comment was just a bit of sarcastic wit, nothing substantive.  But still, Rex felt a deep and penetrating embarrassment seize him.  The question of whether Anakin _knew_ floated to the top of his mind, followed quickly by a stern reminder to stay focused on his instruments.

But Anakin had clearly sensed his emotional turmoil.  “Rex?  You okay?”

Rex nodded.  “Yes, sir.”

For a moment, he dared to hope that answer might satisfy.  His hope died when Anakin asked, “Did something happen down there?  Did you two really get on each other’s nerves that much?”

He was bound to find out sooner or later, Rex thought.  He was Rex’s commanding officer; he needed to know.  And what better time than now, when they were the only ones on the entire ship?

“No, sir,” he replied, eyes still on his console.  “It’s that – things were –”  He sighed.  “Sir, he and I became… intimate.”

The shock was easy to read in Anakin, even from a blurry reflection in a console.  “Really?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Rex said.  “I apologize for not disclosing this information earlier, sir.”

“It’s – that is, it’s not a _problem,_ Rex,” Anakin said, fumbling over his words a little.  “You’re a professional.  What you do in private is your business, not mine.  I’m just… surprised, I guess.”

Rex looked quizzically at him.  “Why’s that, sir?”

There was a long moment of silence, followed by an embarrassed sigh from Anakin.  “I guess it never occurred to me that clones had libidos too.  Which sounds awful when I say it out loud.  _I’m_ sorry.”

“Not a problem, sir,” Rex assured him.  “It’s been a hectic three months.  Nobody’s had a lot of time for thinking.”  Then, to spare his General from having to extricate himself from this conversation, he checked his console and reported, “Evacuation complete, sir.  We’re ready.”

He was by no means Force-sensitive, but it was easy enough to feel Anakin’s silent gratitude for the easy out.  “Very good, Captain,” the other man said, returning his eyes to his own console.  “Here’s what you’re going to do.  Send the rendezvous coordinates I’m about to give you.  But send them on a broad-frequency carrier wave, and use encryption scheme Jenth-One-Nine-Six.”

Rex started keying in the commands.  “You do realize, sir, that this will give our position away to the enemy.  The coordinates you’ve given me are on the planet – specifically the planet behind the enemy cruiser.  And Jenth-One-Nine-Six was broken by the Seps eight days ago.”

“I do realize, Rex.  Execute.”

With a slight shrug, Rex sent the transmission.  He’d volunteered to stay on board, after all, well knowing that Anakin’s plan – whatever it was – would likely get him killed.

A moment later, red lights winked on all over his board.  “Enemy cruiser has locked onto our position,” Rex reported.  “They’re commencing the charge cycle on the starboard ion projector.  Time to firing, fifty-two seconds.”

“Good,” Anakin said brightly.  “I was worried they’d play this one smart, but they don’t want to leave orbit.  Less chance of our pods actually getting to the surface if they stay there.  Hold on, Rex!”

The ship shuddered as Anakin threw full power to the drive, lifting it out of the tail of the comet and into open space once more.  Rex kept a nervous eye on the countdown, as well as the projected shockwave path.  “General, the comet’s gravitic field is hampering our escape,” Rex announced.  “At our current rate of acceleration, we won’t be able to avoid the ion shockwave.”

“Thanks for the heads up, Rex.”  The entire bridge seemed to lurch to the right as Anakin fired the entire port thruster array at full blast, swinging _Resolute_ ’s dagger-like prow around to point squarely at the enemy ship.  “But avoiding things has never been my strong suit.”

His hands danced over the controls.  It became suddenly, painfully obvious what was about to happen.  Rex clenched the sides of his station.

_Resolute_ flashed into hyperspace for a split second, its gravitic limiters disabled so it could execute the micro-jump.  Consoles sparked, lights blew out, and Rex actually felt gravity fail for a moment.

Then the ship reappeared barely a kilometer from the massive, pulsing ion projector.

“Here we go!” Anakin called, and fired the emergency boosts.

Rex nearly lost his grip and footing as the _Resolute_ slammed full-bore into the much larger enemy ship, its prow stabbing into the dish-like projector.  The ion energy suffusing the metallic surface went from light blue to pure white, rippling as it destabilized.  Then the projector lost all structural integrity, collapsing in on itself, and the ion charge detonated.

_Resolute_ died instantly, all its electronic systems blowing out in a spectacular firestorm.  But the explosion engulfed the massive Separatist cruiser as well.  Rex felt a surge of elation as the great ship’s lights flickered and went dark.

Anakin crowed, thrusting clenched fists into the air.  “YES!  Take that, you kriffing barves!”

Rex couldn’t help but be impressed.  _Resolute_ was only a quarter the size of the enemy ship, and probably a fifth of its mass, if that.  Under ordinary circumstances, a ram would have been useless.  But _Resolute_ had already been traveling at a substantial velocity to stay within the comet tail, and it had only gained speed as Anakin had taken it in.  It had transferred an enormous amount of kinetic energy into the enemy ship – energy which their foe could no longer compensate for, after having been disabled by their own weapon.

They were falling out of the sky.

“Time to go, sir,” Rex said.  “Hope you’re already packed.”

* * *

In later days, a survey team would study the impact of the _Malevolence_ ’s and _Resolute_ ’s twin crash-landing on the surface of Dantooine.  They eventually classed it an “unmitigated ecological disaster,” pointing to the groundquakes, renewed volcanic activity, massive dust storms, and irreparable climate change as proof.  Their official recommendation was to have Anakin Skywalker brought up on charges of gross negligence and willful destruction of a biosphere.

The Jedi Order’s official reply, in turn, was short and to the point: _no._

Nothing further was ever made of the matter.

* * *

As the escape pods made landfall at the rendezvous point on the planet’s surface, only a few kilometers from the titanic wreck of the enemy cruiser, Rex watched the dusty horizon with macrobinoculars.

There was very little to see, since visibility was close to zero past a hundred meters.  He expected they wouldn’t get a clear ray of sunshine for days, and was privately thankful for his helmet’s air filter.

“Well,” Anakin said, striding up to Rex.  “I just got a transmission through to Thrawn.  He’s bringing the _Manticore_ in to evac us all.  ETA’s twelve hours, with an expected time to egress of five hours.”

“Good news indeed,” Rex said, not removing the macrobinoculars from his face.  “What’s the bad news?”

He felt rather than saw Anakin’s wince.  “He’s going to court-martial me for losing a ship.”

“You did the right thing, sir.”  Rex lowered the device so he could meet Anakin’s embarrassed gaze.  “I’m sure the Lord Admiral will understand that.”

“He still gives me the creeps.  His mind is like an impossibly smooth, blank wall.  I can never get a read on him.”  Anakin frowned, then with a visible effort forced the expression into a smile.  He clapped Rex on the shoulder.  “But thanks for the vote of confidence.  And thank you for staying on _Resolute_ with me to see my admittedly insane plan through.”

“Anytime, sir.”

Rex’s first clue that something had changed was Anakin.  The smile vanished into an alert expression, and the General’s gaze slid past Rex’s face to somewhere past his ear.

His second clue came when he turned to look and saw the hooded figure coalescing out of the dust fog.

He had his pistols in hand without thinking.  Anakin had also drawn his lightsaber and held it, unignited, in front of him.  Even in the diffuse light within the dust fog, Rex could see the metallic gleam of a silver faceplate beneath the hood.

“Is that the cyborg you told me about?” Anakin asked in a low voice.  “I can’t sense _anything._   It’s like a void in the Force.”

“It certainly looks like it,” Rex murmured.  “Careful, sir.  It’s incredibly fast.”  He tensed for the attack he knew would be coming in the next five seconds.

But the figure stopped twenty meters out.  It raised its right arm, the silver limb gleaming dully, to its face –

Anakin swore in Huttese.  “ _Venge?_ ”

“Were you perhaps expecting someone else?” Venge asked, resuming his stride toward them.  “Such little faith.”

“You didn’t feel like yourself,” Anakin replied.  “Why were you wearing that – mask?”

Coming to a stop within two meters, Venge held the object up as though appraising it.  “It’s a trophy,” he replied.  “To commemorate a great victory.”

Rex holstered his pistols.  “Glad you’re back, sir.  Clearly that bastard didn’t give you too much trouble.”

Venge’s expression fell, just slightly. 

“Only a little, Rex.  Only a little.”


	7. Schedules, Judgments, Prophecies

Padmé Amidala stood on the hangar deck of the _Manticore,_ waiting.

Word had filtered quickly through the ranks of the army and the diplomatic corps about the situation on Dantooine.  She had already been on her way back from a mission to the Toydarian homeworld when she’d heard about it, and had diverted to rendezvous with the _Manticore_.  She hadn’t seen Venge in weeks; she missed him.

Not that she would ever admit that to anyone but him.

Beside her, Dormé closed down her commlink.  “That was Anakin,” she said with a smile.  “He’s on the next transport up, along with Venge and Captain Rex.”

“Good,” Padmé said briskly.  “They certainly kept us waiting long enough.”

Dormé shot her a curious glance.  “Is everything all right, milady?”

Casting a quick look around the hangar to be sure no one was within earshot, Padmé leaned closer to say, “I haven’t had sex in weeks, Dormé.  I spent the past week worrying about him, and now that he’s back I’m going just a little insane.”

Dormé smiled knowingly.  “I understand, milady.  I’m looking forward to seeing Anakin again too.”

They were only standing there for one or two more minutes before the transport settled onto the hangar deck.  Its armored shutters slid aside, letting the men within disembark en masse.  Clone troopers, volunteer officers, techs – and two Force users.

Out of the corner of her eye, Padmé saw Anakin rush forward to sweep Dormé up in his arms.  For her part, though, Padmé had eyes only for Venge.

He looked thin, but otherwise healthy.  He was disembarking next to Rex, looking like he was deep in conversation with him, when he saw her.

“You’re late,” Padmé teased him as he hurried over to her.  “You were supposed to be back from Dantooine days ago.”

Venge gave her a sardonic grin.  “You know it’s not in my nature to make anything easy. For anyone.”

“What does that have to do with you being late?” Padmé asked.

He leaned in to whisper.  “I can sense how hard it was for you to wait.”

Padmé gave him a purposefully ineffectual slap across the chest.  “Scoundrel.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her, hard, the angular lines of his body pressing against her through his robe.  She felt herself shiver as a thrill shot down her spine.  Damn him, he was too good at that.

Then Venge withdrew, and Padmé saw something in his eyes, something that prompted her to ask, “What?”

“You need to know about something that happened on Dantooine,” Venge said.  “Something that directly affects both of us.”

Padmé frowned at him, confused, then followed his gaze to Captain Rex.  The Captain had stood silently by, a small smile creasing his face, during their meeting.

She looked at him, then at Venge, then back at him.

Venge shrugged.

“ _Oh_ ,” Padmé said, the lights coming on.  “ _Oh,_ I see.”  She nodded briskly.  “Yes.  Let’s talk.”

* * *

Between heartfelt greetings from clones, getting a sitrep from Captain Pellaeon, and watching Thrawn inform Anakin that his court-martial would commence tomorrow at 0800 in the officers’ mess, it took Padmé, Venge, and Rex the better part of an hour to make it into the privacy of Padmé’s temporary quarters.  Thrawn had assigned her a relatively spacious guest suite, as befitted her rank of Ambassador.  It was utilitarian, and undecorated, but it had a large bed and a conversation table with four chairs.

“So,” Padmé said once they were all settled in.  “We’ve met before, haven’t we, Captain Rex?”

“At the funeral, following the Battle of Kamino,” Rex replied.  He seemed nervous, on edge, and she couldn’t blame him.  Whatever she and Venge might have discussed, this was new territory for them, too, and she was feeling out of her depth as well.  “General Skywalker introduced us, ma’am.”

She made a brief face at _ma’am,_ but let it go.  He obviously didn’t mean anything by it.  “Thank you for watching Venge’s back down there.  I worry about him.”

“Of course.”  She could almost hear another _ma’am,_ but he had clearly caught her reaction to the first one.  “Truth be told, though, he’s the one who saved me.”

“For a former Sith, I’m surprisingly good at this hero thing,” Venge drawled.

Rex shook his head.  “You give him a centimeter…”

“And he takes a parsec,” Padmé finished, smiling wryly.  “It’s true.  You have to be careful.”

There was a moment of silence before Venge spoke up again.  “So, Rex.  As the newcomer here, why don’t you make your feelings plain?  Padmé and I both know what we expected from this situation, at least in broad terms, but we can’t make any decisions without your input.”

Rex nodded briskly.  “Makes sense, sir.  Hm.”  He turned to Padmé.  “Speaking plainly, Ambassador, I haven’t really got any interest in women.  And while I’m relatively new to this, I have to say I don’t much think I’d be interested in group sex, either.”

“Of course,” Padmé assured him.  “It’s important to know your preferences.”

“So,” Rex continued, glancing between the two of them, “if we’re all fine carrying on with this, seems to me we’ll need to work out some sort of… schedule?”

Venge clicked his teeth together.  “There’s something rather appealing about the idea of arranging a rotation.”

“I agree,” Padmé confirmed.  “With the caveat that it can’t simply revolve around you, Venge.  I know you’d love that, but Rex and I should have nights too.  To explore common platonic interests.”

“The Force forbid I go a night without sex,” Venge sighed, adopting a pose that suggested he might faint.

Rex said, “I like this plan.  Quite a bit, actually.”

“Shall we draw straws for who’s going to be where tonight?” Venge asked.

Getting to his feet and grabbing his helmet, Rex replied, “No need, sir.  I’ve got a court-martial to help prepare for.  My General will need an expert witness, and as I was the _only_ witness…”

Padmé stood, too.  “It’s been a pleasure, Captain.  Drinks tomorrow evening?”  She extended her hand to him.

He grasped it firmly, a warm smile illuminating his features.  “Wouldn’t miss it, Ambassador.”

“ _Padmé_ ,” she told him.

“Then I’ll likewise have to insist on _Rex_.”

“You sew things up that quickly with _her,_ but I can’t get you to stop calling me ‘sir,’” Venge groused.

“Because I happen to like getting under your skin, _sir,_ ” Rex laughed, leaning down to kiss him.  “Enjoy your evening.”

Padmé watched him go.  “I like him,” she said once the door to her quarters had closed.  “I see why you do, too.”

Venge nodded.  “He made what would otherwise have been an intolerably boring week rather enjoyable.  But that’s not to say I didn’t miss you.”

She moved to plant herself in his lap, legs dangling over the side of the chair, arms wrapped around his neck.  “I missed you too,” she said, wriggling slightly to get more comfortable.  She didn’t miss the way the motion made him stiffen.  “I don’t have anywhere to be until oh-eight-hundred tomorrow.  We have all night to make up for lost time.”

He grinned.  “We’ll want to get at least _some_ sleep.”

With a coy smile, Padmé undid the throat clasp of her robe and let the garment slip down to her waist.

“We’ll see if you still think that in an hour.”

* * *

The court-martial was brief.  With most of the ship’s ranking officers attending, Captain Pellaeon laid out the facts of the case, interviewed Anakin and Rex, and made a formal recommendation to Lord Admiral Thrawn that the charges be dropped.  Privately, Anakin was relieved.  He’d known that the court-martial would likely just be a formality, given that his “loss” of the _Resolute_ had destroyed an enemy superweapon.  But Thrawn was the officer in charge, and Anakin didn’t trust him to do anything the expected way.  Having Pellaeon on his side was a boon.

His suspicions about Thrawn were still confirmed, however, when the time came to pass judgment.  The Lord Admiral leaned forward in his seat and asked, “Tell me, Jedi Skywalker: do you believe yourself to be special?”

Anakin frowned.  “The Order believes I’m the Chosen One.  That’s kind of the definition of ‘special.’”

“That is not the question I asked,” Thrawn said, his red eyes flashing.  “I asked if _you_ believe yourself to be special.”

Feeling sweat beginning to collect beneath the collar of his robe, Anakin replied, “I guess I do.”

“Precisely,” Thrawn said, interlacing his fingers in a steepled pattern.  “This is not surprising.  When someone is told for years that they are a thing, they naturally come to believe it.  Regardless –” his eyes narrowed – “of its veracity.”

Anakin stiffened, but carefully kept his expression neutral.  He heard the scrape of a chair behind him.  Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw Padmé – looking like she hadn’t slept much, but still immaculately made up – call out, “Is the Lord Admiral questioning Jedi Skywalker’s status as the Chosen One?  What relevance does that have to these proceedings?”  Next to her, Dormé, still seated, remained silent, but nodded emphatically.

“Ambassador,” Thrawn replied coldly, “your intent to defend your compatriot is admirable, but you have no platform in this court-martial.”

“Lord Admiral, I would echo the Ambassador’s sentiments,” Captain Pellaeon spoke up from his seat beside Anakin.  “I do not see the relevance of my client’s status as Chosen One to these proceedings.”

Thrawn turned his glowing gaze on Pellaeon.  “But it is very relevant indeed, Captain,” he bit out.  “It is my estimation that Jedi Skywalker sacrificed his ship in a poorly-considered plan, rather than following Fleet procedure and withdrawing to summon reinforcements and report the existence of this superweapon.  It is also my estimation that he did so because of a misplaced desire to live up to the reputation crafted for him by the Jedi Order.”

“Lord Admiral, permission to speak,” Rex said, coming to his feet.  Anakin felt a surge of gratitude toward him; he himself was too flabbergasted by Thrawn’s accusation to speak.

“Permission granted, Captain,” Thrawn said.

“General Skywalker’s chief aim is and always has been the protection of the lives under his command,” Rex said.  “His plan was hastily conceived, but it endangered the minimum number of lives and accomplished his objective.”

“A noble sentiment, but misplaced,” Thrawn replied coolly.  “As a Jedi, his goal may be the preservation of life, but he acted in his capacity as a soldier when he implemented this plan.  Soldiers do not protect life, Captain.  They destroy their enemy.  And they follow orders and protocol.” 

He turned his head back toward Anakin.  “These aims coincided this time, Jedi Skywalker.  But they will not always do so.  When that time comes, you will need to make two choices.  Firstly, you will need to decide: are you a Jedi, or are you a soldier?  And secondly, you will need to decide: are you _special,_ or are you not?  Because from where _I_ sit, I see nothing exceptional.”

Total silence reigned as the Lord Admiral sat back in his chair.  Anakin felt as though the wind had been physically knocked out of him.

“Still,” Thrawn continued, “given that you achieved your objective, considering the testimony of Captain Rex, and acting upon the formal recommendation of Captain Pellaeon, I am choosing to dismiss all charges in this matter.”  He rapped his stylus against the formal bell placed in front of him for the court-martial, signaling the end of the proceedings.  “Consider this court-martial adjourned.”

Murmurs filled the room, and Anakin felt Rex’s hand on his shoulder.  Dumbly, he shook Pellaeon’s hand and got to his feet.

As the crowd began to file out, Venge, Padmé, and Dormé moved to stand with him.  Dormé pulled him into a hug.  “You’re going to be fine,” she murmured into his ear.  “The Lord Admiral has some nerve.”

Anakin forced a smile.  “Thanks,” he said.  “I appreciate it.”

But internally, he wondered at what Thrawn had said.  Was he a Jedi, or a soldier?  Could he be both?

With Vader out there, was his status as the Chosen One so clear-cut?

He would have to think on this.

* * *

Darth Vader knelt before his Master, awaiting Lord Plagueis’s pleasure.  Laid out on the floor of the observation deck were the body of General Grievous, two destroyed lightsabers, and a datapad.

“Report,” Plagueis finally said, his chair rotating away from the view of hyperspace through the window.

“I have reviewed the _Malevolence_ ’s sensor log,” Vader said, gaze fixed on the deck in front of him, gesturing at the datapad.  “The ship was destroyed when a suicide ram by an enemy cruiser prematurely detonated the ion shockwave it was preparing to fire.  The ion explosion disabled the _Malevolence_ , and it fell into the atmosphere of Dantooine, where it crashed.  There were no survivors.”

“The work of Skywalker, no doubt,” Plagueis said.  “Among the Jedi, only he is so… innovative.”

“I suspect as much, my lord,” Vader agreed.

“What of General Grievous?”

“I have downloaded his recorder data.  He defeated Venge handily in their initial engagement, but rather than kill him, he gave him a chance to collect himself for a second encounter.”  Vader resisted the urge to spit on the stupid being’s corpse.  “In the second fight, Venge took him without a lightsaber except for the decisive and killing blows.”

There was a pause as Plagueis digested this information.  “Can you explain Venge’s sudden increase in power?”

“At the conclusion of their second fight, Venge took Grievous’s mask and placed it on his own face,” Vader said.  “He identified himself specifically as _Justicar_ Venge, and there was a strange distortion effect in the recording when he said it.  I can offer no solid explanation, but my instincts tell me that he has… _changed,_ somehow.”

Plagueis laughed once, the sound low and satisfied.  “So he has.”

Vader dared to make eye contact.  “My lord?”

The Muun’s eyes were narrowed in a smile.  “He has made the oldest bargain in history, Lord Vader.  He has traded his soul for power.”

Now Vader frowned.  This talk of souls was unlike Plagueis, who dismissed any religion concerning matters other than the Force as idealistic nonsense.  “His soul?”

“An imprecise statement, of course,” Plagueis said.  “But nevertheless accurate.  We merely need to watch and wait, Lord Vader.

“Soon, Justicar Venge will be ours once again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of "Justicar Venge!" I hope you enjoyed the story.
> 
> The next story, "When in Hapes," will be up early next week. Yes, you read that right. We're going full Wolverton, baby. (Alas, due to timeline constraints Space Fabio will not be appearing in this one.)


End file.
